Confirmation

Confirmation day is fast approaching for the 8 or so students in my parish's confirmation class. Father wants the class to to be turned into a church school/youth class when he's done with them after confirmation. Unfortunately for a few of them confirmation will probably be "catholic graduation day". Their parents will no longer bring them to church and they will remain babes in the faith (at best) or be little better than pagans (at worse). For all of its good intentions, continuing Anglicanism has not been able to "fix" this problem. I think the parents are ultimately to blame. Teenage kids are usually lazy, and if the parents leave it up to them whether or not they will go to church, then of course the kids won't go. Parents have to drag them out of bed and go to church with the kids. So if the parents hate going to church, the kids won't go.

Moving

I have moved recently and have not been able to post much. My dsl service should be up in about a week and a half, so I will be posting more in a few weeks. This weekend I went to NYC with my girlfriend. We worshipped at Church of the Transfiguration, an historically anglo-catholic parish in lower Manhattan. The priests' ceremonial was way off. I was quite shocked. They chanted the litany, which was nice, but it was all downhill from there. It did not follow ritual notes at all. The deacon ad subdeacon didn't hold up the priest's chasuble while he censed the altar; the priest didn't wear a cope during the first part of the mmass; thhey didn't wear maniples; they didn't do the introit, gradual, etc. It was quite out of the ordinary. They were basically '79 BCP anglo-catholics. We in the various anglo-catholic continuing churches do it the old way - a full missal mass straight out of ritual notes. Are there any episcopal parishes that still do it that way? I think Ascension and St. Agnes in Washington DC does. Does anyone else know of any?

No Crazy Church Politics

Several times on this blog I have mentioned some of the difficult things about being a continuing Anglican. But, as we all know, there are many good things about being a continuer. One of these is in the area of church politics. I take great comfort in the fact that in my jurisdiction I do not have to worry about issues like women's ordination, pansexualist agendas, liberation theology, universalism, and more. They are non-issues and are not even up for discussion. We have our views on those subjects, and can defend our views, but we are all of one accord on subjects like that. We hold to catholic teaching as enshrined in scripture and tradition. We do not have to worry about one of our bishops ordaining women to serve as "priests".

We have issues to be sure, but they are not gargantuan in proportion, or related to redefining morality. Our issues are things like "when should we get a new organ", "what service should we have and when", and so on. But nothing like "should we recognize mormon baptisms?" We do not even go there. Now, it is true that there are politics in the continuing churches, and they can be annoying - especially for clergy. But they never really directly affect the day-by-day ministry in the parish church or the lives of the laity. This is in stark contrast to many dioceses and parishes in ECUSA.

All of this is very refreshing because it means we can be busy proclaiming the catholic faith and ministering to people. I feel sorry for those conservative parishes in ECUSA that have to spend their time and energy fighting their bishop and their denomination. If that energy could be used for spreading the gospel, and for healing, imagine what could be done on this earth! So whenever I read something on Virtuosity about Anglicanism that is disconcerting, I can be comforted sommewhat in that it usually is not happening in my denomination or in others, such as APCK, and more. I have more time, then, to pray for my brethern who not in such a good denominational situation. And may all continuers pray that God would give us grace to use our situation for his honor and glory... that we would be "strengthened for service"!

High Church REC

I visited a friend's REC parish in PA this past weekend, and it had a rack of votive candles at the rear of the nave, along with a statue of their patronal saint in the sanctuary near to the altar. And they have icons all over the parish, including in the nave! It just goes to show that you cannot put any particular continuing Anglican denomination into a box. I have been to some ACC parishes that are extremely low in their churchmanship and would never have anything like that in their church. It is a good sign for the APA-REC merger since the APA tends to be a lot more anglo-catholic.